There appears to be a syntax error at line 42 of eutils.eclass. The line: cat > ${D}/usr/lib/$1 <<"END_LDSCRIPT" invalidates everything that comes after it and makes it impossible to call any of the other functions. I believe it the line should be: echo "END_LDSCRIPT" >> ${D}/usr/lib/$1 which seems to fix the problem.
Forget it, I don't know what I'm talking about. The problem is I was trying to pass an invalid parameter further down to enewgroup.
heh k ...